BLOOMINGTON — A Bloomington man who barricaded himself for hours in a storm sewer in 2022 was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty in a negotiated plea deal.
Eli Swartzentruber agreed to plead guilty to attempted battery with a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony, intimidation, a Level 6 felony, and battery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Class A misdemeanor. All other charges, including sexual battery, confinement, and residential entry, all Level 6 felonies, and striking a law enforcement animal, a Class A misdemeanor, were dismissed.
On Monday, Monroe Circuit Court 2 Judge Valeri Haughton sentenced Swartzentruber to 1,456 days in the Department of Corrections on the battery using a deadly weapon charge. He was given credit for 404 days and issued, and he received good-time credit of 135 days. Judge Haughton suspended 917 days to probation. On the intimidation charge, Swartzentruber was sentenced to 728 days in jail and given credit for 364 days and good time credit for 364 days.
According to a probable cause affidavit, police were first alerted of 37-year-old Eli Swartzentruber’s activity on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022, at around 8:30 a.m. when a woman told police he sexually assaulted her just two hours earlier.
A woman reported that Swartzentruber arrived at her cabin on West Koontz Road at 6:30 a.m. and asked if she would go “live underground” with him. When she told him she did not want to go, Swartzentruber pulled out a machete and told her he would return in ten minutes.
Swartzentruber returned and began to pack the woman’s belongings hurriedly. He stated they had to hurry because he needed to return a stolen truck before sunrise. The woman told Swartzentruber that she did not want to go to jail.
Swartzentruber told her while armed with the machete, “I’ll bail you out, break you out, and the police will have to take me down dead before they take me because I got this.”
He then squeezed the woman’s neck and kissed her, took off his pants, and stuffed cash down her shirt.
The woman used the excuse that she needed to go outside and use the restroom in an attempt to escape. She grabbed her bag and Swartzentruber’s pants to prevent him from following her as she went outside.
By the time police were contacted and arrived on the scene, Swartzentruber had fled.
But a short time later, at 9:30 a.m., police responded to Seminary Park after a report of a man with a hatchet.
When officers arrived, a man with a hatchet laid the weapon down and approached them. He told police a man (Swartzentruber) attacked him and threw the hatchet at him. He then informed the officers that Swartzentruber had retrieved the hatchet from a truck in the Kroger parking lot.
The truck was registered to Swartzentruber.
Others in the park also reported that Swartzentruber attacked them and swung a metal rod at them.
Investigators found Swartzentruber’s clothing near a storm drain and determined he had entered the city’s underground sewer system.
Police armed with city diagrams, flashbangs, and cameras searched the City of Bloomington’s sewer system for Swartzentruber. Ultimately, Indiana State Police K-9 Loki apprehended Swartzentruber after an eight-hour standoff.
Swartzentruber faces charges of sexual battery, residential entry, battery resulting in bodily injury, battery using a deadly weapon, and intimidation.
Prosecutors treated the two incidents as separate cases.
